Gout, also called gouty arthritis, is a painful inflammatory disorder that arises when uric acid accretes in the joints because it is either overproduced or the kidneys cannot excrete enough. Gout typically manifests as a flare: a sudden, unpredictable and excruciating burning pain with redness, swelling, warmth and stiffness of the joint, sometimes with low fever. The lower extremities and especially the big toe are commonly affected. Gout is an effect of rich diets and is increasingly common: it affects 1-2% of the Western population at some point in their lifetimes.
Colchicine has been used to treat gout for centuries. Colchicine is also the drug of choice for several other debilitating inflammatory disorders, including familial Mediterranean fever, pericarditis, Behçet's disease, immunosuppression, chronic constipation, and other conditions. Colchicine's potential as an anticancer drug is also under investigation.
Colchicine is a tricyclic alkaloid (C22H25NO6; formula weight 399.4) that is present in Colchicum autumnale and Gloriosa superba as well as other plants. Its chemical structure is depicted below:
The formal name of the molecule is (S)N-(5,6,7,9-tetrahydro-1,2,3,10-tetramethoxy-9-oxobenzo[alpha]heptalen-7-yl)acetamide. Colchicine is now used to prevent acute flares for chronic gout patients in most parts of the world.
Colchicine's mechanism of action has not yet been fully elucidated but the following is known. Colchicine decreases the inflammatory response to urate crystal deposition by impairing the motility of granular leukocytes. Colchicine also interferes with urate deposition by decreasing lactic acid production by leukocytes. Colchicine also interferes with kinin formation, diminishes phagocytosis and subsequent inflammatory responses, and disrupts microtubules. It also inhibits mitosis, thereby especially affecting cells that have high turnover rates such as in the gastrointestinal tract and bone marrow. Nausea and diarrhea are the primary adverse side effects of colchicine therapy when it is used in a safe dosage range.
Typically Colchicine is administered orally and is rapidly absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract. In patients with normal organ function, peak concentrations in the blood are reached within about 2 hours. Colchicine and its metabolites (mainly 3-demethylcolchicine and 2-demethylcolchicine) distribute to the white blood cells, liver microsomes, kidneys, spleen and intestines. The liver metabolizes colchicine. The compound and/or its metabolites are excreted in feces but up to 20% of colchicine passes unchanged in the urine.
The margin of safety for colchicine doses is narrow, posing a special risk from drug-drug interactions that have the effect of increasing colchicine concentrations in the blood by slowing its metabolism or other elimination. Rhabdomyolysis and in many cases death have been reported when colchicine levels in the blood substantially exceeded clinically recommended levels, particularly in patients who had impaired function of the liver or kidneys.
In individuals whose organ function is impaired colchicine can persist in the body at very high (i.e., toxic) levels for long periods. Moreover a large number of physicians have reported that drug-drug interactions result in sustained toxic levels of colchicine even in patients whose organ function was normal. Two physiological processes require special consideration to maintain colchicine in a safe range in the blood. Firstly, the body's main drug metabolic enzymes for colchicine are from the CYP3A subfamily, especially CYP3A4 present in the liver, gastrointestinal tract, kidney and other sites. The medical consensus is that when a coadministered drug inhibits CYP3A4 activity, colchicine's half-life and bioavailability is greatly increased and toxicity is much more likely if the dose of colchicine is not reduced.
Secondly, P-glycoprotein (P-gp) acts as an efflux pump to evict many xenobiotics—including colchicine—from the inside to the outside of cells in an ATP-dependent way. P-gp is encoded by the multiple drug resistance 1 gene (MDR1), known as the ATP-binding cassette subfamily B member 1 (ABCB1) gene. Medical consensus is that when a coadministered drug inhibits P-gp activity, colchicine's bioavailability should increase because of inhibition of P-gp in the gut, and its half life in the blood may increase because if inhibition of P-gp in the kidney, thereby increasing the likelihood of toxicity.
Numerous articles have suggested that CYP3A4 and P-gp act in concert with one another and are inhibited by many of the same agents. (Z. Yang et al., J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther. 2008; 327:474-81; S. Choudhuri and K. D. Claassen, Int. J. Toxicol. 2006; 25:231-59; S. Zhou et al., Drug Metab. Res. 2004; 36:57-104; F. Thiebaut et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 1987; 84:7735-8; I. Sugawara et al., Cancer Res. 1988; 48:1926-9; V. J. Wacher et al., Mol. Carcinog. 1995; 13:129-34; C. Wandel et al., Cancer Res. 199; 59:3944-8.) As a consequence, physicians are typically advised not to coadminister any second drug with colchicine if the second drug is known to inhibit either CYP3A4 or P-gp. At a minimum, physicians are encouraged to reduce the dose of colchicine to minimize the risk of toxicity, even though this reduction might lower the dose beyond a therapeutically effective amount.
A leading clinical study on coadministration of CYP3A4 inhibitors with colchicine recommends colchicine's dosage be lower to less than the standard dose (i.e., lower than the dose used when no inhibitor is coadministered) by about 33-75%, and further recommends that administration at the low dosage should be only one half or one third as often as the standard frequency, all to be determined as a function of the strength of inhibition. (R. A. Terkeltaub et al., “Novel evidence-based colchicine dose-reduction algorithm to predict and prevent colchicine toxicity in the presence of cytochrome P450 3A4/P-glycloprotein inhibitors,” Arthritis and Rheumatism, 2011; 63:2226-2237, 3521). In other words, those authors found that in the aggregate, the total amount of colchicine that may be tolerable over time is as little as one tenth of the total for the standard dose. Unfortunately the adjusted doses of Terkeltaub et al. require an enhanced level of monitoring because the margin for error is small especially for chronic administration.
The FDA has warned that indiscriminate administration of colchicine with CYP3A4 inhibitors or P-gp inhibitors can create life-threatening conditions and an increased number of serious adverse events. (Food and Drug Administration, “Information for healthcare professionals: new safety information for colchicine (marketed as Colcrys); 2009. URL: http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders/ucm174382.htm). Unfortunately the constraints on coadministration are particularly severe for gout patients. These individuals are commonly afflicted by obesity, hypertension, heart disease, systemic infections, depression and other conditions. Yet the drugs to be avoided due to the inhibition interactions with CYP3A4 or P-gp are often the most preferred for treating those secondary conditions. Hence the patient need is urgent and ongoing for a method of treatment that provides colchicine conveniently in safe and effective amounts while simultaneously enabling concomitant administration of second drugs that happen to inhibit CYP3A4 or P-gp.